Its the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In LA, nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something. -Paul Haggis


CRAZY LARRY

There's something different about this city. Granted, I've lived in the suburbs my whole life, and I didn't see a black man until I was well into my teens. But from the moment I got here, I've just felt like something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it though.

And then the other day it hit me. When or how isn't important --I think I was walking around at the LA Film Fest at the time-- but it suddenly occurred to me that this city is cold. There's no feeling here. No bond. No sense of togetherness. Other cities, at least the ones that I've been to, have a little feeling. A little warmth. But LA is just one giant free-for-all

Hence, the above quote. But anyway...

I was sitting in traffic on my way home from work the other day when I noticed a homeless man standing on the sidewalk shouting to nobody in particular. Now, I don't know for a fact that he was homeless, but I can tell you that he was standing within half a foot of a grocery cart--which appeared to contain many, if not all, of somebody's belongings--and he was dressed in clothes that looked like they'd been worn for days on end. I'm not a detective, in fact I have no investigative mind whatsoever. But I'm pretty sure this guy was homeless.

The intersection of Lincoln and Venice is always backed up, at least coming from the north. Typically, once you're caught in the nearly gridlocked traffic, it takes about four cycles through the lights before you finally make it through the intersection. Thus, I got to look crazy homeless man for several minutes.

When I first saw him he was standing by a bus stop bench. I thought that maybe he was just a seedy looking bus passenger, God knows this city is crawling with them, but then I saw the shopping cart, followed by the dingy clothes, and after about twenty seconds or so I managed to put two and two together. I'm not sure when I noticed that he was shouting. Maybe it was after I realized he was homeless, but in all likelihood the shouting is what caused me to look at him in the first place.

For a few seconds, it was little more than interesting. Watching a man standing on the sidewalk shouting to nobody and everybody all at once isn't something you see everyday, but when it comes down to it its little more than a 'crazy homeless man' stereotype. And so I watched, out of the corner of my eye, pretending to be focused on the traffic that I knew full well wasn't going anywhere.

Then he stepped out into the street.

The man walked up to the BMW SUV in front of me and began shouting at the woman in the passenger seat. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I'd bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that it didn't make any sense. And then, much to my shock and dismay, he moved away from the SUV and started towards my car.

Still, I couldn't hear what he was saying. My radio was on and I didn't want to turn it down and give him reason to think that I was actually interested. He was standing a few feet away from my car, staring at me. He continued to shout, but that wasn't really what I was worried about. As he shouted, he gestured wildly and every once in a while, his hands would disappear into his jacket pockets and he'd continue to gesture. When a crazy man is shouting at you and you can't see his hands, it's a little unnerving.

Eventually, he got frustrated that I wasn't giving him my full attention --as I imagine the woman in the SUV in front of me had done-- and moved on. The man started yelling at the car behind me, but just as I began to think the whole scene was over, he ran back past my car and started shouting at the SUV again. Only this time, he got up right next to the window, pointing an accusatory finger at the woman in the passanger seat. I honestly didn't know what was going to happen, but before my mind had time to come up with too many worst case scenarios, the light turned green and we were all on our way.

Except for the homeless man that is. I suppose he continued his verbal tirade against the cars that took our place.

I guess I'll never really know what the man was shouting about. Maybe somebody had said something to him earlier that day that they shouldn't have said, which set him off and the only way he could feel better was to take out his aggressions on innocent passersby. Or maybe he was putting on some kind of guerilla theatre performance about the hardships of homelessness. Or maybe he was just legitimately crazy and enjoyed shouting.

But I'd like to think he was shouting because he has no home and not a single person who drove past him cared.


IS ONE OF THEM 'LIAR'?

I had said that I was going to write about the ultimate filmmaker, and I will, but I just don't feel like it right now.

I will say, however, that a small little indie movie came out today called "War of the Worlds." Now, this movie doesn't have the advertising budget of typical Hollywood films, in fact I doubt you've ever heard of it, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it's going to be this summer's sleeper hit. The director is this incredibly talented up and coming filmmaker named Steven Spielberg --like Hollywood needed another jew-- and the star is a prominent stage actor named Thomas Mapother. I think both of these guys have got a future in the industry. It might take a few years, but sooner or later they're gonna get noticed.

I stake my reputation on it.